WASHINGTON, July 23 Pelosi-al-Malaki-rmks
WASHINGTON, July 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a brief press availability this afternoon with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq before their meeting in the Capitol. Below are their remarks:
Speaker Pelosi. Good afternoon. I'm very pleased to welcome Prime Minister al-Maliki to the Capitol of the United States.
We last visited in Iraq on Mother's Day, May 10th, and it was a pretty exciting visit for us then because we could congratulate Mr. al-Maliki on the successful regional election that had taken place. At that time, we talked about corruption and how it is an impediment to investment in Iraq. We talked about the removal of our ground security forces from the city that would occur by the end of June -- and it has. And we talked about how we can work together to increase security, decreased corruption, promote the rule of law, and attract investment to Iraq, so important to its future.
It's impossible for a Member of Congress or an American to talk about Iraq without recognizing the extraordinary contribution and sacrifice of 1 million Americans to secure Iraq and we're forever grateful to them for their sacrifice.
And in that spirit, I'm pleased again to welcome Mr. al-Maliki to the Capitol.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. I would like to thank very much Speaker Pelosi. I thank you for the warm welcome. This is not the first time we meet. We had many previous meetings in the past, some of them were here in the Congress and some of them were in Baghdad.
Every time we meet, we talk about the joint cooperation between Iraq and the United States, and we talk about joint sacrifices as well. We talk about how we can move Iraq forward in order to achieve the best possible results after the great sacrifices that took place by both Americans as well as Iraqis in order to establish democracy in Iraq.
My visit here comes at a significant success from the area of security as well as it comes after the implementation of the joint agreements that were signed between Iraq and the United States successfully. It also comes as an indication that we are winning after defeating and continue to defeat al-Qaida and all other outlaw groups.
Our success is not only on the security front, but I come here in this visit in order to achieve and aspire to another successful implementation of the Strategic Framework Agreement that was signed between Iraq and the United States -- an agreement that aims at advancing a multi-faceted relationship in the economic front, commercial front, educational front, and scientific front.
And in order to achieve these objectives, I have the pleasure of attending a variety of meetings with senior U.S. officials. My meetings were constructive and positive and we will continue to build on this in order to achieve more success. Thank you so much.
Speaker Pelosi. Mr. Prime Minister, welcome to the Capitol and I look forward to our conversation.
SOURCE Office of the Speaker of the House |
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